The present invention relates to a football tee with onside kick ball support. For deep kickoffs, place kickers prefer a football tee that elevates the bottom tip of football by the highest possible elevation. The kicker strikes the ball on the sweet spot at a location diametrically opposite to the laces of the ball, driving the ball down field, preferably with a lazy backward end-over-end spin. Currently, for colleges and high schools, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS) rules are uniform with one another, allowing a tee of any height so long as the height does not exceed two (2) inches. In the National Football League (NFL), the rules are more strict, requiring the tee to support the ball at precisely an elevation of one (1) inch off the ground surface.
Occasionally, a team trailing on the scoreboard has just scored and is about to take advantage of the opportunity to kick the ball down field. The rules of the NFL, the NCCA and the NFHS are uniform concerning the concept of an "onside kick". From the spot of the kick, once the ball has traveled ten (10) yards down field, anyone on either team may recover the ball and obtain possession. This rule allows the trailing team to take advantage of an opportunity to recover their kickoff and catch up on the scoreboard with the other team.
The onside kick has become an art form in the game of football. As the onside kick is normally carried out, the kicker attempts to kick the football opposite the laces on the top half of the ball so that the ball leaves the kicker's foot with a rapid forward end-over-end spin. Where the technique is properly accomplished, the ball may hop forward a couple of times and then approximately eight to nine yards from the spot of the kick may hop upwardly above the reach of players on the receiving team, thereby making the ball difficult for the receiving team to recover and providing the possibility that the kicking team will recover it.
As the onside kick technique has evolved, kickers have grown to prefer supporting the ball on one of its tips directly on the ground surface itself. However, this technique often fails because no tee has ever been made that has a side surface designed to accommodate such support. The kicker is often required to either use a holder (a teammate holding the ball on the ground) or to support the ball on a tee elevated off the ground making successful onside kicks more difficult to accomplish.
Accordingly, a need has developed for a football tee that includes an outer peripheral surface specifically designed to allow support of a football on a ground surface using a peripheral edge of the tee for such support.
Applicant is co-inventor of the football tee disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,655,453, granted on Apr. 7, 1987, and is the sole inventor of the football tees disclosed and claimed in the following U.S. Patents:
U.S. Pat. No. Date of Patent 4,657,252 April 14, 1987 D 305,448 January 9, 1990 D 291,714 September 1, 1987 D 392,705 March 24, 1998 D 372,062 July 23, 1996 D 383,816 September 16, 1997 D 383,817 September 16, 1997 D 391,275 February 24, 1998 5,961,402 October 5, 1999.
None of these patents teaches or suggests a football tee having an outer peripheral surface designed to support a football on a ground surface.
The present invention constitutes an improvement over the tee disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. D 383,816. Versions of this tee have been marketed under the Trademark TOE-TAL.RTM. and GROUND ZERO.RTM. and are becoming more and more popular in high schools and colleges throughout the United States. In the National Football League, in the 1999-2000 season, of 31 teams, 28 used the GROUND ZERO.RTM. tee.